August 2020 Meeting on Zoom

Another really enjoyable virtual coffee morning.  Lots of members had items to show everyone again this month.  Some people are prolific knitters or sewers as you’d expect. 

  • Barbara had hand knitted a cosy cardigan
  • Frances had made a smashing black and white scarf and hat all in one using the Alison Dupernex stitch pattern.
  • Angie had made a rug and a crocheted cushion cover
  • Sarah had updated an old cotton bag by adding some knitted squares to it. She had also made some more gaiter face masks.
  • Ann had also made a mask.
  • Emy had sewn some bandanas for kids with cancer and also completed some more scrubs for hospital staff.
  • Margaret had been sewing dresses and had made a sideways knitted cardigan
  • Gill had made a bag and finished off some UFOs (unfinished objects) that had been sitting around for some time.
  • Lyn  had also made some more masks for the family, experimenting with alternative patterns and fabrics to suit hearing aid wearers. Regular elastic around the ear can rub on hearing aids causing them to whistle and/or making a loud rustling which is very distracting and irritating.
  • Angie had also been painting in her newish flat and done the inside of a cupboard door in cheerful patterns to brighten it up.

Also Lyn has collected some nice yarn for a club sale – it is now with Gill. We are looking forward to being able to have a face to face meeting eventually at which we can sell it to members.  Thank you Dawn for donating this.

The second half of the meeting was themed – How did we get into Machine Knitting.  There were a range of responses.  Many people started when they had young children to make clothes for, this was at a time when Mums often made their childrens clothes and there was much less choice in the shops.  A few members cannot hand knit or crochet so chose this as an alternative. Others were captivated by seeing demonstrations in the big stores – these were the days when most large stores had yarn, fabric and both sewing and knitting machine franchises.  Demonstrators were very skilful.

Some people had been brought up in families where their Mum, Aunt or Grandma had a machine and taught them to use it. Note: Dads and Uncles rarely machine knitted although some husbands got hooked on the craft or lent a hand seting up or mending machines.

A few had attended college courses to study design or textiles and had the opportunity to try machines there.

One lady had fairly recently taken up the craft and was able to improve her skills by coming along to club meetings.

 

 

 

 

July 2020 Zoom Meeting

Another sucessful meeting using Zoom, we are getting quite good with it and around 12 people managed to get online this month.

After a general chat, we started with a Show and Tell session, nearly all the items knitted were cardigans, they must be inspired by the cool summer weather we’ve had recently:

Barbara had a lovely blue hand knitted one in double knit but she has yet to get any buttons. 

April had machine knitted an alpaca yarn in a shade of brown with a peplum and a garter stitched collar, very attractive, she also told us about some yellow shetland yarn she had bought to make a throw using a sculptered garter stitch pattern #473 .  She had also sewn some Christmas decorations in felt.

Ann also had a pretty blue cardigan – the first she had made since moving house and having had her machines packed away for some time. 

Clare had a cardigan in a pale blue using 3 ends of Uppingham’s crepe yarn. This was in a stitch pattern she had used in the past for a jumper. 

Margaret had been shopping for fabric and made a super V necked  t-shirt with stripes – all matched up at the seams.

Frances had made some face masks

Angie had crocheted a pretty cushion cover.

Tricia had been altering some curtains.

Lyn had been experimenting with neoprene fabric – making some simple face masks.

Finally Gill asked if anyone had been making the mask dolls for children in hospitals – Barbara had finished some and Clare had nearly completed one. This is ongoing as children in hospital will need these to help any anxiety when hospital staff are wearing masks.

Margaret suggested that by Christmas we should all have made some decorations which can be used  as presents instead of our usual Secret Santa arrangement at the Christmas Party. Let’s hope we are al out of lockdown by then.

Finally, it was agreed that we would have an August meeting – normally the club has a break then but this year it seems likely that most members will be at home as nearly everybody is a senior citizen and being super careful about not picking up the virus by going out and about much.

Thanks to Margaret for arranging the meeting and to Gill for chairing it.

 

 

 

June 2020 Meeting

This was the second meeting using Zoom the online meeting system.  Most members managed to take part, we held the meeting as a Coffee Morning with a starting time of 10:30 and had  2 x 40 minutes to show off our makes.  Thank you to Margaret for organising this.

As there were no photos possible this write-up will just be a brief description. 

Several people had been making dolls in masks dressed as nurses to help children in hospitals.  Margaret had made a cardigan she showed us which was a tuck stitch pattern.

Sheila had still been making scrubs and was planning a jumper and jumpsuit for family members. Clare had a blue tuck lace jumper with wide sleeves.

Lyn had edged a large table cloth on her overlocker. Beryl had been gardening –  making up for lost time last year.

Gill had been experimenting with a pattern making program.

Angie showed us a textured crocheted cushion.  Sarah had made a blanket using the Alison Dupernex pattern. Emy had been making scrubs and masks Tricia had a cat blanket made with a  yarn that had been made on a yarn twister and she told us that sometimes the yarns had formed looped which made the job more difficult.

April had a light weight wrap and had also been sewing.

This format of meeting will be continued until at least the Autumn 2020.  It keeps everyone in touch and we can share our crafting creattions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 2020 Meeting

We had a very jolly Zoom meeting with 13 people attending,  instead of an evening meeting we held this in the form of a coffee morning. Several people had items for the show and tell including Barbara who had done several baby items in both hand and machine knitting.   The Chair’s “homework” was an Alison Dupernex pattern and we saw several items and work in progress from various members.

There were quite a few members making scrubs for NHS staff and masks as well – lots of discussion around this mainly patterns and fabric used. Well done to all those who had made loads of scrubs and masks for the NHS.

As this Zoom format worked really well we will continue meeting online until the Pandemic lockdown rules are changed and we can safely meet again – bearing in mind many members are very elderly.

 

March 2020 Meeting

At the March meeting we looked at different stitch techniques by the designer Bill King.
 We chose to look at single bed work only. All involved hand manipulation of stitches and a discussion followed of where these patterns could be used. Various difficulties were discussed as to yarn and tension required for moving several stitches at once.

It was a very interesting evening as most people had read his articles in Machine Knitting Monthly magazine and could see them demonstrated by members of the club.

There were several items in the show and tell section,  our chairman Gill had created a cushion cover using the plating technique that was covered in the last meeting.  There was a hand knitted blue childs jumper and a Batwing sweater using a Bill King design. 

 

February 2020 Meeting

This month our focus was the technique of plating.  In this, two yarns are used, one appears on the knit side and one on the purl side.  Using patterning such as tuck stitch both in single bed fabric  and ribbed fabric, the yarns can appear on the opposite side. This makes an interesting textured fabric and also sovles some problems such as itchy wool yarn which can be backed but a silky acrylic yarn. It is also suggested that yarns which have a tendency to produce a slight bias can be knitted with a yarn which doesn’t although some small experiments suggest this is not always the case.

To start the meeting,  we had a show and tell. Barbara brought a stripy child’s top, Anthea showed a V neck jumper, April brought a paisley patterned throw/blanket.

Barbara's stripey top
Childs top
Anthea's V neck top
V neck jumper with interesting lacy pattern
 

We also watched a video on some laptops to see how plating works.


 

After this, Frances gave us an excellent demonstration of plating on a Brother machine.


We also looked at various samples and garments brought by members using the plating technique.

January 2020 Meeting

Rabbits everywhere –  Gill led a workshop to use a pre-knitted square created mainly by Margaret, to make a little bunny rabbit – it could be used for a child’s toy (not suitable for babies) or on a mobile or an Easter decoration. One was made into a glove puppet.

It was a fairly simple process – from a pattern found on the internet.  Sewing a couple of lines of running stitch, gathering these up and using some stuffing to make the head.  Then sewing up the body stuffing it again, finally finishing off with optional pom pom tail and some embroidered eyes, nose and mouth.

Everyone joined in and a whole warren of rabbits was made by the end of the evening. 

The show and tell was an edge to edge cardigan  made by Barbara which was widely admired. And Angie brought some sweet little baby’s socks she’d made.  Margaret had an asymmettrical scarf that she made up from a Ravelry pattern.  It was similar to a scarf that April had made.

There were notices about UNRAVEL in February and the Sandown Park craft show in January.

 

 

November 2019 Meeting

This month we have Angie show us all the background to her amazing final show pieces for the Morley College Textile course.

She took her inspiration from rusty metals – the texture and colours.  

These circular saw blades  sparked her imagination.

Angie talked about the course and showed us 3 huge folders that contained her samples, notes and ideas. She then mentioned there were several more of these folders at home and that all the students were initially given a single folder to record their ideas.  She was so enthusiastic about the work that she spent vast amounts of time working on her samples and ideas to fill all these books.  She explained the structure of the course and the various elements including dyeing, embroidery sewing and knitting as well as drawing.

Several club members went to the course final show held, unusually,  at South Bank University, not Morley College due to renovation work in progress.

The focus of her work was knitting with wire using the colourse and texture derived from her inspiration of the rusty metal surfaces.

Angie was absolutely inspirational – her enthusiasm and creativity shone through.